This week Lisa and I are going shopping! It is the New York International Gift Fair at the Javitz Center. Besides Toy Fair (mecca for toy retailers), NYIGF is the best way to learn about amazing new toys to add to GIFT HERO. We spent today walking through the general gift and accent on design sections. Tomorrow we will scour the Baby and Child floor where there’s sure to be too many great gifts to choose from.

We stocked up on educational toys and award winning toys including the coolest jewelry kits, arts and crafts sets, building toys, gifts for girls and gifts for boys. Visit us soon for great new kid’s gifts and old favorites from Alex Toys, Fashion Angels, Perplexus, Ogosport and many more.

Recently, I was very moved by a piece written by Lisa Belkin. In “Welcome to the Club: Lessons from One Mom to Another,”  Belkin captures the emotional transformation that many mothers feel when they become mothers – which nobody can prepare you for. I remember that feeling after my son was born – that first day, I looked at myself in the mirror in the hospital and saw myself as “someone’s mother” for the first time. It was an amazing feeling -and I have to admit – somewhat terrifying!

Yesterday, I shared Belkin’s article with my Facebook friends and had many comments from friends (and even my own mother) about how they were touched by the piece. Within minutes, friends in Switzerland and Russia had shared it with their friends.

I had the pleasure of meeting Lisa Belkin several months ago at a small gathering of Princeton Alumnae in New York City. At that time, Lisa had just given notice to the New York Times, for which she had written her entire adult life. She had decided to leave the NYT to enter the digital age and become the Senior Columnist for Life/Work/Family at the Huffington Post. She spoke with our group about why she made the decision to leave and her hopes for her new position. I wish Lisa the best of luck at Huffington Post, and look forward to more amazing posts like this one.

You can visit Lisa Belkin’s page at Huffington Post and subscribe to her RSS Feed for like her Facebook page.

I’m in love with My Blackboard Roll Mat from Seedling. This simple arts and crafts kit includes a blackboard mat, chalk and an eraser…that all rolls up and ties with a bow! It is lightweight, portable and just genius. I wish this kid’s gift for 3 year olds had been around when Benjamin was younger.

I gave this gift to my niece and it is now her go-to activity for the car and restaurants. It is one of our favorites and best sellers. New York Magazine loved it too – they included it in their holiday gift guide (with www.gifthero.com as the place to buy it!).

My daughter Maya fancies herself a budding fashion designer. She loves to “design” her own outfits using her own clothes.

So I’m always on the lookout for arts and crafts kits that have a fashion theme. One of the new products we recently added to the site is the Fashion Design Playset from Scratch Art is perfect gift for girls. Girls use the stylus to scratch designs into the black surface of the Scratch Art stickers, revealing fabulous accents. Then they can “dress” the 8 international models however they choose. The set includes 8 postcards that girls can sends to their friends to share their creations – or just post up on a bulletin board at home!

This past Saturday was one of those days when my family didn’t leave our apartment. The snow turned to sleet and we cozied up in the family room reading, watching movies and playing games. Lisa had recommended Sketch It! from Blue Orange Games to us. Her kids (and the adults too) love this educational game. We just added this kid’s gift to GIFT HERO because her family was addicted.

Sketch It! is an unique drawing game that inspires creativity, quick thinking, and fine motor skills. With this award winning toy, both the sketcher and the decipherer can earn points. We all had a blast trying to draw at the right speed – too fast and you confuse the others…too slow and you miss your chance to score. Find Sketch It! and lots of other great educational toys for 8, 9 and 10 year olds on our site. It’s a perfect birthday gift.

We spend a lot of time searching for the best products to sell on GIFT HERO. One of our most trusted sources for recommendations is the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio website, which provides unbiased, independent reviews of hundreds of toys. The Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Award Seal has become a well-recognized symbol of trust and quality.  Stephanie Oppenheim appears regularly on shows such as Today to share her latest batch of new finds.

Many of the award winning toys we sell at GIFT HERO have won Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Awards.  One of my favorites is Gobblet Gobblers by Blue Orange Games. It’s based on the rules of tic-tac-toe, but with a twist. The game pieces are different sizes, so the larger pieces can “gobble up” the smaller pieces on the game board. My daughter Maya and I played this when she was a little younger, and she would routinely beat me! A few years later, we graduated to Gobblet, the version for older children and adults (also an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Award Winner).

Visit our Award Winning Toys department to see all of our Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Award winners.

My 8 year old daughter Maya loves to make (and wear) her own jewelry. Jewelry making kits are one of our favorite go-to gifts for Maya’s friends.

Our absolute favorite is the Ultimate Shrinky Dinks Jewelry Designer. Girls design and color their own plastic pieces and then bake them in the oven until they shrink and get hard. This kit includes enough stuff to make over 100 pieces of jewelry, so it’s perfect for playmates and will last through many months of use. Maya loves to make jewelry for her friends too.

Other favorites are the Fab Badge Maker and Cap it Off Jewelry.